Tag Archives: convention

Charlie Is A Martyr

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It pretty much goes without saying that many Christians grow uneasy when the conversation turns to politics. They hear words like life, marriage, family, manhood, womanhood, religious liberty, and natural law, and they instinctively hesitate. Why is this?

I give speeches about this on occasion. I do so because, unfortunately, Christians have been incessantly told these are political issues. Perhaps worse, their pastors were trained to think of them that way, too. Admittedly, while I don’t remember a single lesson in Two Kingdoms theology at the seminary, I do remember being told to avoid talking politics with my people. And so, for many years, I didn’t, which meant I naturally avoided any topic labeled as political. The ill-fated result was a type of absolute separationism that the Founding Fathers did not intend. Still, somehow the Church was convinced to leave the state to its dealings and the Church to hers. Indeed, we churchmen have far more important things to do—Word and Sacrament things. Local, state, and federal policy is none of our business.

Are you sure about that?

I suppose there’s a reasonable measure of piety to be found in the concern, if only because the Christian pulpit should never become a place where the Gospel is reduced to an election strategy. I certainly didn’t endure seminary training to become little more than an appendage of Washington, Lansing, or any other earthly capital.

So, I suppose in one sense, I agree with the concern. Still, the piety as defined is incredibly incomplete.

Life in the parish has taught me a few things. For starters, I’ve learned that the devil is quite happy to be in charge of deciding what belongs in whatever category. He convinces a husband that watching porn doesn’t equate to cheating on his wife. He convinces a believer that he can still call himself a Christian while refusing to attend worship. Yeah, okay. Similarly, in this instance, Satan is more than pleased to slap the label “political” onto something if, by doing so, that means the Church will steer clear of it, if only because the label marks its object as out of bounds. I’ve been told by countless Christians that the topic of abortion is political. I’ve been told by just as many that marriage laws and LGBTQ Inc.’s efforts are civil issues—political issues—and therefore, none of the Church’s business. I’ve had fingers wagged at me for saying from the pulpit that transgender surgery for children is ungodly child-mutilation, and that to insert that into a sermon was political.

The devil is also quite content to corral us into using only Bible-y words. He’s more than happy to let us talk about peace and forgiveness and love for the neighbor in the abstract while the unborn child is treated as disposable—while marriage is completely redefined, families are destroyed, and children are handed over to ideologies that teach them to despise the bodies God gave them. The devil is quite pleased to have us speak in generalities from the pulpits and in Bible studies about God’s beautiful creation while male and female are legislated into costumes, religious liberty is recast as bigotry, and natural law is openly mocked as though that same beautiful creation has no say whatsoever.

So yes, call them political issues if you want. I suppose, at a minimum, doing so helps a person see where the fight is actually taking place. It helps you see that life is debated in legislatures. It shows you that marriage is being defined by the courts, and that family is being shaped by school boards and bureaucracies. It reveals that religious liberty is currently being defended or surrendered through public pressure, leading to ungodly statutes lathered in dreadful policies that persecute rather than preserve. Natural law is suffering the same. Have you noticed how it’s essentially being buried under a mountain of slogans?

Quite frankly, the devil prefers these topics to be fixed in the political sphere. The kingdom of the left—the civil government—is the one place where human beings can be forced to submit under threat. It’s in the kingdom of the left where humans can either formalize reality or rebel against it.

I learned years ago to narrow my eyes at anyone who equates biblical fidelity with political speech. That’s because I’ve since learned that many, even in the Church—especially in the Church—have it backward.

The first thing to keep in mind is that politics was second to the discussion. Christ was here first. With that, I’m willing to say that almost every major cultural issue in our world today is already Christological in nature, especially the ones I already mentioned. They do not belong first to politics. They belong to Christ. That means they belong to the Church. That also means the world cannot tell us when, where, and how we ought to speak of or engage with them. We own them.

The topic of life belongs to us because Christ is the Author of life, the One in whom was life and through whom all things were made (John 1:3-4, Acts 3:15). Marriage belongs to us because God’s Word makes clear that Christ is the epicenter of its mystery from the beginning (Ephesians 5:25-32). He is the Bridegroom. We are the bride. Family belongs to us because Christ has revealed God as Father and has made us His children through Baptism (Matthew 6:9, Galatians 3:26-27, and Ephesians 3:14-15). Manhood belongs to us because of Christ’s incarnation. He is the eternal Word made flesh and is the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (John 1:14, 1 Timothy 2:5, and Hebrews 2:14-17). Womanhood belongs to us for the same reason. Christ took upon Himself flesh from the Virgin Mary and honored motherhood in the economy of salvation (Luke 1:30-35, 42-43 and Galatians 4:4). Religious liberty belongs to us because Christ alone is Lord of the Christian conscience, and we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29, Romans 14:4, and 1 Corinthians 7:23). Natural law—which pretty much touches everything in the entire world—belongs to us because all things were created through Christ and for Christ (Romans 11:36). Not only that, but the law written on the heart still bears witness to the Creator’s order (Romans 2:14-15 and Colossians 1:16-17).

Having said this, and considering recent rumblings in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as it heads into convention this summer, I should add that this is also where the objection to calling Charlie Kirk a martyr begins to come undone.

Some Christians insist he died as a result of political speech. Some will go still further and say it was divisive political speech, maybe even bigoted. And then, like clockwork, they’ll regurgitate some of the more popular fabrications. For example, even though he regularly had black female guests as experts on his show and as speakers at TPUSA events, some quote him as saying, “Black women do not have the processing power to be taken seriously.” He never said that. Ever. The line is an outright invention, and yet it keeps getting passed around, if only because it does exactly what his enemies need it to do. As another example, people say he called LGBTQ people a “contagion.” He didn’t call anyone a contagion. But he did point to reliable statistics, referring to the rising numbers of gay and transgender children as demonstrating “social contagion” metrics, and from there, he warned against the increased ideological capture of children through the rejection of God’s natural law and the deliberate confusion of the body God gives.

Ultimately, fabricated quotations, mangled summaries, and phrases ripped from context will never define anyone, most especially Charlie. He was a crisp speaker, arguing from the lordship of Christ over all things. To his enemies, he was horrifyingly effective. Therefore, it became necessary to recast Charlie’s perspectives into “racism,” “hatred,” or “bigotry.”

But Christians know better. We know the real point is what he actually confessed and why he confessed it, not what his opponents needed him to have confessed in order to despise him. Ultimately, Charlie engaged every topic as a Christian, openly insisting that his listeners first understand faith in Christ as his point of origin in every discussion or debate. In other words, he did everything as an emissary of Jesus. He observed each and every topic through the lens of the Gospel, and then went straight into public conversation as one who already knew Christ owned any topic he chose to confront.

If a Christian is killed because he publicly confessed Christ’s claim over life, the body, marriage, the home, conscience, liberty, the order God has written into creation, and all the extraneous points extending from these things, simply calling it political speech just doesn’t work. If anything, it merely proves how successful the devil’s tactics have been. It shows how deeply politics has trespassed onto the Church’s property—onto holy ground.

In the end, the simplest point here is that heaven gives no permission to the Church to surrender these things. Caesar may regulate them. Courts will distort them. Activists from every strange perspective will weaponize them. Political parties of every persuasion will almost certainly exploit them. Still, they’re the Church’s property. The Church owns them all. She has received them from the hand of God, and with that, she goes forth into the world as their guardian, being sure to hold the government to its ordination relative to them.

I will always enter the public square without apology. Even as a pastor, I belong there. Of course, I don’t go there because politics is my ultimate. I go there because Christ is.

So, again, call all these things political if you want. But just remember what politics is actually doing. It’s merely trying to handle what Christ already owns.

Fear’s Ambiguity

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There are moments when a church body betrays itself more by what it avoids saying than by what it actually says. Of course, you need more context to understand what I mean by this.

Essentially, I wrote and submitted an overture asking the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, in convention this summer, to acknowledge Charlie Kirk as a modern Christian martyr, establish September 10 as a Day of Prayer for Faithful Witnesses in Our Time, and call the Church to renewed courage in public confession under the cross. Two other similar overtures were submitted, both supported by multiple districts and circuits. Admittedly, mine was the more aggressive of them in asking the Synod to establish a specific day of prayer and remembrance. Still, the fact that there were three shows that the concern was shared by countless others. (You may read the original overtures on pages 330 and 331 in the Convention Workbook, which is found at https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/2026-convention-workbook.)

The floor committees responsible for handling the overtures have met. Their task was to review submitted overtures, combine related matters where they saw fit, and present final resolutions for action. In this case, they produced a generic omnibus resolution condemning political violence and encouraging public service while avoiding Charlie Kirk entirely. (You may read the replacement overture on page 91 by visiting  https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/2026-todays-business-issue-1.)

I’ll speak plainly for myself. The replacement overture currently on its way to the convention is a fine example of institutional evasiveness. It condemns political violence. It encourages peaceful participation in public life. It quotes Scripture. It even cites the Confessions. From there, it commends Lutheran resources on church and state. But together, it has the all-too-familiar scent of committee caution. The whole effort has been scrubbed clean of Charlie.

The whole reason this replacement overture even exists is that something concrete happened nine months ago. Charlie Kirk was murdered. It happened publicly. He was shot and killed for Christian conviction—for speaking in defense of life, marriage, family, manhood, womanhood, religious liberty, and the lordship of Christ over all things. These are all things treated with open contempt by very powerful forces in American life. His death was therefore more than another entry in the tragic ledger of political violence, as the new overture implies by withholding any and all references to him. Charlie’s death exposed what so many Christians in the trenches already know, and what many institutional churchmen still seem desperate to avoid—or at a minimum, soften. And it’s simply this: Confession of Christ in the public square has a cost.

Charlie paid it.

And yet, the replacement overture refuses to even mention his name. That alone tells me almost everything I need to know. By the way, I should make it clear that I am not accusing Committee Chairman Christopher Esget or Vice-Chairman Lucas Woodford of having a hand in this. I know them both. They were clearly outnumbered by both opponents and institutional cautionaries. The result? Smoothing the matter into a generic condemnation of political violence in order to lessen the risk of offending the more left-leaning elements in the LCMS, which I know exist. Back in March, I gave a speech seasoned with elements of my relationship with Charlie to a relatively large LCMS gathering. No sooner did I begin mentioning his name in a positive way than at least ten of the fifty-plus tables got up and walked out in protest.

How dare an LCMS pastor say anything positive about such a public figure espousing divisive rhetoric?! By divisive rhetoric, do you mean his fearless defense of what we LCMS Lutherans believe, teach, and confess in unity—in synod—in our supposed walking together?

Well, whatever. People getting up and walking out of one of my speeches doesn’t bother me. And it doesn’t change the central fact. Charlie confessed the true Christ, and with that, he was a public Christian figure who labored in defense of truths that Scripture teaches and the Church confesses. He spoke in the open. He did so knowing that, for one reason or another, many would hate him for it. Still, he went. And he was ultimately killed for that public confession and for no other reason. That is martyrdom in the truest sense of the word, and as I said, he’s the only reason we’re having this conversation.

Relative to the original three overtures, it seems a no-brainer that, throughout history, the Church has remembered her notable martyrs. That’s because we know with certainty that Christ sustained their confession under the cross. And so, naturally, the Church remembers them because their blood preaches with otherworldly eloquence to the living. And she says their names because she knows that nameless remembrance becomes abstraction.

Unfortunately, abstraction is almost always the first refuge of fearfulness. I’ve seen it a thousand times in the political sphere. We may be seeing it here, if only because the omnibus overture takes Charlie’s death and dissolves it into “multiple assassination attempts,” “violent conflicts,” and “many other sad examples of division.” Those things are real, and political violence should be condemned wherever it appears. However, the whole force of the matter is lost when the Synod is asked to speak about everything in general because it lacks the willingness to name Charlie in particular.

But again, we’ve seen this a thousand times. History teaches that’s exactly how bureaucracies mourn. They widen the lens until the real issue disappears into ambiguity.

Now, I know some are reading this and already objecting, assuming Charlie should be excluded from remembrance because his theology was not exclusively Lutheran. That brings to mind something I wrote and shared with the men in my own circuit with the same concerns when I first introduced the overture. At one point along the way, I wrote to them:

“Something came to mind during our Children’s Christmas service rehearsal yesterday morning. While we were singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, I was reminded that the hymn comes to us from Charles Wesley. As LCMS Lutherans, we are far from Charles Wesley doctrinally. We do not share his theology of the sacraments, ministry, or conversion. And yet, without hesitation, we sing his words, teach them to our children, and gladly receive the hymn as a faithful witness to the incarnation of Christ. We do this not because we endorse Wesley wholesale, but because we recognize that God’s truth can be confessed clearly and beautifully even through someone with whom we have real theological differences. We’re capable of distinguishing between honoring a faithful confession at a particular point and canonizing the entire theological system of the person who made it. At least, I believe we’re capable of making and maintaining that distinction within the Church. Either way, that’s the distinction I was reaching for with Charlie, who, many of you know, was my personal friend. The epicentral point of alignment is not that he was Lutheran, or that we would affirm every position he held, but that he died confessing Christ. His death was, in that sense, a confession of Christ to the end, and that confession stands on its own. Memorializing him by name need not imply doctrinal agreement any more than singing Wesley’s hymn does. Overture or hymn, in both cases, the Church is not saying, ‘This person was right about everything,’ but rather, ‘Here, Christ was confessed.’ That, it seems to me, is something we have long known how to recognize as Confessional Lutherans.”

Now, had I thought to do it at the time, I might even have added some of the names we recall formally in the Lutheran Service Book. Ironically, we remember Gregory the Great on September 3, which would be seven days before the date I’m recommending for Charlie. Gregory the Great played a role in developing the theology of purgatory in the Western church, a doctrine that Lutherans explicitly reject as dangerously false. Still, we remember him for other reasons, one of which is his Regula Pastoralis, a timeless exposition of pastoral care. Meanwhile, Charlie openly confessed himself a Christian according to the Nicene Creed, which I know firsthand served as a rudder for his public and private confession of Christ. Not to mention, he began events saying as much.

Apart from these things, indeed, this remains a teachable moment for our churches. In an age that requires bold confession—even as the replacement overture quotes Luther’s Large Catechism, rightly saying that the devil seeks to destroy peace through contention, murder, sedition, and war—I can assure you that Satan also appreciates bureaucratic fog, the kind that insists the best way through controversy is through safe and inoffensive generalities.

The Synod had before it three concrete opportunities to teach clearly about martyrdom, vocation, public witness, and the cost of confessing Christ in an increasingly hostile age. At a minimum, it could’ve edited those, easily showing, without causing any division, that Charlie Kirk’s death matters because public Christian confession matters. His death became a holy opportunity for the Church to preach Christ crucified while teaching her children that those joined to Christ should expect opposition. When a public Christian is murdered amid rising hatred for Christian truth, the Church should have enough nerve to call it what it is. She should at least have enough wits about her to understand that the real human being at the event’s center ought not go unnamed.

In the end, I don’t really care which of the three overtures the committee might choose to handle. Personally, the Wyoming overture is probably the best of the three. But either way, choose one. Cultivate it, if necessary. And as you do, leave its core alone. Leave Charlie Kirk in it. He must be named. His witness should be acknowledged. His death should be interpreted theologically. His murder should be condemned concretely. His example should summon the Church to the courage she’ll need in the forthcoming era.

If we cannot do that, the failure will say more than the replacement overture ever could. And I dare say that, since I was working with TPUSA leaders to attend the convention, arranging for them to be present and to listen as Charlie’s name is spoken by one of the last remaining denominations of biblical fidelity, this could be a huge black eye for LCMS Lutheranism. It doesn’t have to be. But it could be.

The Church must do better. The Church, in convention, must say Charlie’s name. His blood is still very fresh in Utah’s soil, and the forthcoming generation of Christians—one that overwhelmingly claims him as its own—will remember this moment.